Winemaker Notes
Ruby red color, the nose is very intense, persistent, with notes of red fruits. In the mouth it is warm, balanced, with velvety tannins. Long aromatic persistence.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Il Poggione has one of the appellation's most enviable track records for quality and cellar longevity. The 2014 Brunello di Montalcino is a different beast. This wine prizes elegance, finesse and a compact mouthfeel. I would suggest a slightly shorter drinking window of approximately ten years. No matter how you cut it, the wine is absolutely beautiful and indeed ranks high on a list of favorite wines from the vintage. The bouquet is chiseled and tight with wild blueberry, plum, red rose and a touch of cherry confit. No doubt the mouth is thinner in this vintage, but the wine has plenty more going on to keep your attention. I'm liking it. I went back to the bottle a few days later.
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Jeb Dunnuck
From a difficult vintage, the 2014 Brunello Di Montalcino (36 months in French oak) is nevertheless a beautiful wine. Spiced cherries, dried herbs, underbrush, and sappy flower/rose petal notes all emerge from the glass, and it's supple, medium-bodied, silky, and seamless on the palate, with ripe tannins and a forward, already delicious style. Drink it over the coming decade.
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Wine Spectator
This is smooth and caressing, wrapped around cherry, plum, loam, tobacco and cumin flavors. Hefty tannins line the finish, but all the elements are in the right proportion. Features a fine, complex finish.
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James Suckling
A riper style with plenty of dried red cherries and plums, as well as woody spice notes. The palate is quite fleshy with an open-knit thread of blue plums and darker cherries. Drink or hold.
One of Tuscany’s most respected estates and a founding name in Brunello, Tenuta Il Poggione has been making wine in Montalcino since the late 19th century. Founded by Lavinio Franceschi, it is still family-owned today by fifth-generation siblings Leopoldo and Livia Franceschi.
As one of the original producers of Brunello di Montalcino, Il Poggione helped shape the region’s tradition of excellence. The 1,500-acre estate includes 300 acres of vineyards and 200 acres of olive groves, with many vineyards above 1,300 feet. Among them is the legendary Vigna Paganelli, planted in 1964 and one of the oldest vineyards in Montalcino.
Led by father-and-son winemakers Fabrizio and Alessandro Bindocci, Il Poggione pairs careful vineyard work and hand-harvested estate fruit with traditional winemaking and modern technology. The result is elegant, powerful, age-worthy wines that capture the character of Montalcino.
Among Italy's elite red grape varieties, Sangiovese has the perfect intersection of bright red fruit and savory earthiness and is responsible for the best red wines of Tuscany. While it is best known as the chief component of Chianti, it is also the main grape in Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and reaches the height of its power and intensity in the complex, long-lived Brunello di Montalcino. Somm Secret—Sangiovese doubles under the alias, Nielluccio, on the French island of Corsica where it produces distinctly floral and refreshing reds and rosés.
Famous for its bold, layered and long-lived red, Brunello di Montalcino, the town of Montalcino is about 70 miles south of Florence, and has a warmer and drier climate than that of its neighbor, Chianti. The Sangiovese grape is king here, as it is in Chianti, but Montalcino has its own clone called Brunello.
The Brunello vineyards of Montalcino blanket the rolling hills surrounding the village and fan out at various elevations, creating the potential for Brunello wines expressing different styles. From the valleys, where deeper deposits of clay are found, come wines typically bolder, more concentrated and rich in opulent black fruit. The hillside vineyards produce wines more concentrated in red fruits and floral aromas; these sites reach up to over 1,600 feet and have shallow soils of rocks and shale.
Brunello di Montalcino by law must be aged a minimum of four years, including two years in barrel before realease and once released, typically needs more time in bottle for its drinking potential to be fully reached. The good news is that Montalcino makes a “baby brother” version. The wines called Rosso di Montalcino are often made from younger vines, aged for about a year before release, offer extraordinary values and are ready to drink young.